It is a story you may have heard before: the original breast cancer ribbon was not pink but peach coloured. It was created in the early 1990s and handed out in supermarkets by American advocate Charlotte Haley . When Haley refused to work with Self Magazine and Estée Lauder, who were both interested in the ribbon, they changed its colour from peach to ‘150 pink’ – the pastel shade we have now come to associate with breast cancer awareness. And every October (), its presence is dialled to the max: ‘tis the season for , , and .
This commodification : where companies release pink versions of their products with the aim of donating a portion of their proceeds to charities. While it may seem harmless, pinkwashing can have very real and negative consequences. For instance, when messaging about breast cancer is overwhelmingly pink, . The use of pinkwashing becomes particularly problematic . But more than this, pinkwashing can lead to misconceptions about the disease and our needed responses to it.
Breast cancer background: beyond the pink
Sometimes, breast cells change and stop growing or behaving normally, and these changes can lead to what is known as . Breast cancer remains the and the leading cause of for Canadians aged 30 to 49. Though , these rates vary based on the cancer stage and other health factors. If someone’s breast cancer metastasizes (spreads to other parts of the body), their five-year life expectancy drops to 22 percent. Women under 35 .
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, treatment can depend on a variety of factors: , and . Options range from surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and other therapy combinations. Learning about risk factors () and getting age-appropriate screening are important ways to identify cancer early, .
From messaging to misconceptions
Breast cancer awareness is and too much of it can be distracting. In , Gayle Sulik, author of , explained that pinkwashing can limit “our ability to comprehend what it’s really like to face the disease, live with medical uncertainty, and accept the difficult realities of risk, recurrence, treatment, and even death.” Simply put, all the pink messaging we see about breast cancer undermines how complex and devastating the disease actually is.
When breast cancer is oversimplified for the public, it also means we gloss over health inequities, such as , despite similar incidence rates between the two groups. Moreover, the overwhelming focus on cis-women’s experiences with breast cancer means that concerns of LGBTQIA+ and gender non-binary populations go .
Access to accurate health information has been and a matter of public safety – an issue we have seen . My point here is not that breast cancer awareness campaigns are inherently mis-informative. Rather, it is that we should question how this pink aesthetic influences the way we think about and respond to the disease. First and foremost, personal health questions are always best answered by a healthcare provider. And when seeking health information online, it is important to consider who has published or authored it, what the overall goal of the information is, and what sources are used to back up its claims.
Acclaimed cancer activist Barbara Brenner once noted that words matter because “.” This October, let us remember that there are a lot more words to the story of breast cancer than ‘150 pink.’
Nina Morena (she/her) is a PhD student in the department of Art History and Communication Studies. Her research investigates the social media practices of young people with metastatic breast cancer.
